One reason why I take photographs when out walking. "When Psalmist or Prophet calls Israel to life their eyes to the hills, or to behold how the heavens declare the glory of God, or to listen to that unbroken tradition which day passes to day and night to night, of the knowledge of the Creator, it is not proofs to doubting minds which he offers: it is nourishment to hungry souls. These are not arguments –they are sacraments." (George Adam Smith, The Book of Isaiah, Vol. II, p. 90)
Abraham Joshua Heschel. A Life of Radical Amazement. Julian E Zelizer. (Jewish Lives), (New Haven, YUP, 2022)
Here's a sample of why Abraham Joshua Heschel deserves some of our time, and why his words and legacy remain important as inspiration, guidance and warning for people struggling with the realities and unrealities of the 21st Century.
"Modern thinking has often lost its way by separating the problem of truth from the problem of living, cognition from the human situation…Reflection alone will not procure self-understanding. The human situation is disclosed in the thick living. By whatever we do, by every act we carry out, we either advance or obstruct the drama of redemption; we either reduce or enhance the power of evil." (p.227)
In a long evolution that started in Warsaw amongst Hasidic Jews, and took him to Berlin to study philosophy, then to America in 1940, Heschel matured into one of the leading religious thinkers and most significant political activists in mid century Jewish and American public life. To a remarkable degree, Heschel integrated devout love and learning of the traditions of Judaism, attentiveness to religious practices of worship, prayer and festival, and an increasing commitment and passion for social activism in pursuit of justice, compassion and radical resistance. It is a particular strength of this well organised biography that Heschel emerges as one prepared to live with the tensions such a paradox represented in his own times, as he plunged into "the thick of living."
When he came to America he did so as a refugee, and within 5 years worse than his worst fears were realised as to the fate of his family and people left behind in Hitler's Europe. His mother, aunts and sisters all perished amongst the millions of his murdered people. Like Elie Wiesel his friend and companion, Heschel never forgot, and never allowed the world to forget what happens when nations expel God from the policies, ideas, values, goals and practices of political power linked to military capacity and motivated by national, racial or ideological self-interest.
Zelizer's biography has narrative energy, and provides careful and informed contextual information about such influences as Hasidic thought, Heschel's own tradition of Reformed as distinct from Orthodox Judaism, his passionate investment in the Civil Rights movement and personalities, his pivotal role in Vietnam War protests, his unceasing highlighting of the plight of Soviet Jews. We are given important insights into the institutions in which he taught and where he was admired by many, resented or tolerated by some; and Zelizer traces Heschel's roles and initiatives in the social activists organisations which swallowed so much of his time and energy.
The reader is guided with enough information to understand and appreciate the complexities and demands Heschel faced as one whose driving passion was to "advance the drama of redemption, and…reduce the power of evil." And to do so in mid 20th Century America, as an immigrant Jew of Hasid origins, and as a poetic and persuasive teacher, an inspiring if demanding mentor, or persistent and annoying gadfly who wouldn't just fly away when politicians tried hard not to listen.
But Heschel was a poet theologian. He wrote philosophy of religion in a spirit of adoration of the God who calls the human being to a life of radical amazement, self-emptying awe in the presence of the Holy, and wonder and gratitude for the gift of life every day. So some of his more academic and rigorous colleagues thought his writing and teaching too poetic, vague lacking scholarly credibility, a style of writing which was devotionally woolly rather than rationally elegant. But many, many more readers, found in Heschel's writing a passionate invitation to live the faith, to taste the wonder, to risk the disciplines of a life whose goal is to repair the world, redeem human failing, renew the social and moral fabric of a dangerously self-absorbed culture.
Zelizer is persuasive in defending Heschel's style of writing and goals in his teaching. He wanted Jewish thought to be embodied in life practices and social values that demonstrate truth in action. Nowhere is the integrative force of Heschel's life of the mind, soul and body more clearly demonstrated than in his decision to march from Selma to Montgomery, arm in arm with Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights Leaders. With every step his theological anthropology was lived, enacted and publicised. Likewise his near obsessive focus on highlighting the moral indefensibility of the Vietnam war, and his prophetic outrage at the use of napalm, saturation bombing, proxy militarism on foreign soil, and caught up in the catastrophe, millions of innocent civilians whose value and lives are measured not as collateral damage but as uniquely treasured human beings created for the joy of God.
"Philosophy cannot be the same after Auschwitz and Hiroshima…Philosophy to be relevant must offer us a wisdom to live by–relevant not only in the isolation of our study rooms but also in moments of facing staggering cruelty and the threat of disaster." (Heschel, p.151)
What drove Heschel, was the moral passion of an Old Testament prophet. Writing his classic study, The Prophets, he had been infected by their moral outrage, penetrating critique of the rich and powerful, compassionate concern for the poor, oppressed and vulnerable, and above all their adamantine certainty that such pervasive and structured injustice is blasphemy, and subject to the holy anger and judgement of God.
I have long studied and admired Heschel. There is a (slowly) growing literature exploring further his ideas, legacy and the importance of voices like his for times like ours. This is now the most accessible, dependable and readable biography of him I've read. Beautifully produced and reasonably priced, it comes with a well constructed and user friendly index, and with endnotes full enough to anchor the scholarship, and selective enough to make them an excellent road map into further study of Heschel.
I finish with a personal response to this book. Heschel once urged people of faith to defy despair. Here are his words, near the end of his life, written by one deeply wounded by humanity's capacity to inflict wounds and suffering on others. And in the face of humanity's worst, they summon humanity's best as service to God, in words of defiant hopefulness:
"And yet God does not need those who praise Him when in a state of euphoria. He needs those who are in love with him when in distress, both He and ourselves. This is the task: in the darkest night to be certain of the dawn, certain of the power to turn a curse into a blessing, agony into a song. To know the monster's rage and, in spite of it, proclaim to its face (even a monster will be transfigured into an angel); to go to Hell and to continue to trust the goodness of God – this is the challenge and the way." (Passion for Truth, pp. 300-1)
First photo above is of MLK and A J Heschel on the Selma March
Second Photo above is MLK and AJ Heschel at Arlington in shared prayer at a silent protest against the Vietnam war.
Today I sat for a while chatting with two of our Iranian friends who are currently in hotel accommodation awaiting processing of their applications for asylum. With a mixture of body language, minimal words, Google translate, and the kind of patience and laughter that makes friendships out of perseverance, we managed to talk about some important things – like family, welcome of strangers, our shared faith in God, and football.
Using Google translate I promised my friend I would pray for his wife and family back in Iran. He was typing something to me at the same time. He went first, and his sentence was – "Please pray for my wife ———." I showed him what I typed, "I will pray for your wife ——-"
There are times when you just shut up, don't overthink it, and be grateful for the nudging of the Paraclete, the One who comes alongside as the ultimate translator.
The photo is of someone who was having fun with my name and my often understated proficiency at five a side fitba.
"Man is a being who asks questions of himself" and his first question is "how to turn human being into being human." (Abraham Heschel)
On Holocaust Memorial Day I turn to several Jewish writers whose books and whose lives have influenced the way I look at the world, and how I try to live and be in that world, my world. Elie Wiesel, Viktor Frankl and Primo Levi have plumbed the depths of human suffering and the evil that imagines and enacts evil and suffering upon others. From them I have learned to listen, to repent, and to try harder to be honest with my own moral assumptions, and blindness.
Amy Jill Levine, Jonathan Sacks and Martin Buber are amongst those who in their writings have sought as Jewish thinkers, to exemplify dialogue towards understanding, education against prejudice, a willingness to consider the piety and poetry of a well lived life towards others who are different. Only where there is such dialogic good will, they argue, can there be a navigable road towards understanding, appreciation and respectful reverence towards the ways of being that grow out of people of different faiths, but the same humanity.
Abraham Joshua Heschel is a Jewish Rabbi, philosopher and spiritual teacher whose writings are now woven like a noticeably bright tapestry thread through my mind and the canvas of my ways of thinking. I first discovered Heschel's writing through his magnum opus The Prophets. Then his two classic books on Jewish philosophy of religion, God in Search of Man and Man is Not Alone.
Over the years I've gathered and read his books and articles and a number of the best studies of his life and work. It so happens the latest biography arrived yesterday, and today is Holocaust Memorial Day. I will spend some of my time today reading Heschel, and reflecting on the blessing he has been to those who have tried to turn their human being into being human.
Heschel was within six weeks of being lost to the world in 1939. He managed to escape to Warsaw, then London and finally the United States. His mother and four of his aunts perished at the hands of the Nazis. Heschel never ceased to wonder at the mystery of what it means to be human; likewise one of the dominant notes in his writing is wonder, awe and worship in the presence of the ineffable God of merciful justice and fathomless mystery. The combination of these two convictions, that humanity is in search of meaning, and God is in search of humanity, creates an all but unbearable tension in Heschel's writing. But it results in writing that is one part theology, one part passion and one part testimony. Heschel was a praying philosopher, a doxological theologian, and a prophet of social justice who prayed with his feet.
The Holocaust was always a sombre backdrop in Heschel's thought. "The degree to which one is sensitive to other people's suffering, to other men's humanity, is the index of one's own humanity." The obverse is also true – insensitivity or indifference to other people's suffering is the index of one's own inhumanity. In the face of the incalculable suffering and incomprehensible evil of the Holocaust, Heschel urged against bitterness and hatred, argued that his people's suffering must not be rendered pointless or unproductive. The Holocaust must not be forgotten, neither by indifference that trivialises a people's tragedy, nor in the fog of justifiable anguish that paralyses goodness and nourishes hate. "Life comprises not only arable, productive land, but also mountains of dreams, an underground of sorrow, towers of yearning, which can hardly be utilized to the last for the good of society…" (Abraham Joshua Heschel and Elie Wiesel. You are My Witnesses, Maurice Friedman, New York, Farrar Strauss&Giroux, 1987, p.76)
"True love for man is clandestine love for God." In that simple aphorism Heschel distils so much of his life's thought, convictions and actions. The Holocaust happened for reasons both complex and long in the making. The enduring legacy of mechanised cruelty and state sanctioned genocide on such a scale, is finally inexplicable except by the insistent use of terms such as sin and evil, both individual and structural. Heschel knew that, but his sternest warnings were against indifference. And the opposite of indifference is "the true love of man…" For that he argued and prayed, in such ways he acted and spoke, so that as a public intellectual and a prophetic voice, he echoed the passionate partiality of the prophets for acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with God.
On this Holocaust Memorial Day, reflect on these words of Heschel. They don't fully explain why the Holocaust happened; but they signal the why, and they are a warning to later generations to beware the complacency that allows the necessary conditions for history to repeat itself:
"There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil. We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done to other people…The prophets' great contribution to humanity was the discovery of the evil of indifference." (Quoted in Shai Held, Abraham Joshua Heschel. The Call to Transendence. Indiana University Press, 2013, 171-2. Emphases original)
Pythagoras once wrote, ""There is geometry in the humming of the strings, and there is music in the spacing of the spheres." These past two or three weeks I've been reading over chapter 21 of the book of Revelation, the description of the New Jerusalem. The angel starts to do precise measurements, the length and breadth, the thickness of the walls, the dimensions and number of gates, then a quantity survey of the materials. It's a remarkable exercise in geometry is theological rhetoric, measurements as descriptive qualities and mind-expanding quantities.
This is a City like no other. It is a multi-dimensional geometric blueprint brought to ultimate reality by the Alpha and the Omega. This geometry represents the humming of the strings accompanying the worship of 'the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb', and there is the precision of maths and music in the spacing of those 12 foundation stones, made of every kind of precious stone. Reading that passage while listening to Jessye Norman singing the Holy City has been an exercise in multi-disciplinary reading and listening – listening to the text and hearing it set to music. And it provoked
I have long pondered the descriptive architecture and literary geometry of John's description of the New Jerusalem, the Holy City. Out of those prolonged reflections I began to doodle, and then to draw a geometric pattern along the lines of John's descriptive prose-poem. Imagination is a way of envisaging, and envisaging is in turn a form of seeing, and seeing is what Revelation is all about!
Pivotal moments are signalled by the dramatic historic moment when John says, "I saw…"
When I saw him I fell at his feet…
I saw a Lamb standing as though it had been slain…
After this I saw four angels…
I saw heaven opened…
Then I saw a great white throne…
I saw a new heaven and a new earth…
I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem…
It is those momentous moments of seeing that signal revelations in Revelation. They announce a new vision, from the terrifying to the beautiful, from the luminous to the numinous. My doodling was around the angel's geometric survey of the Holy City, and the result is a new tapestry being worked by an expanding pattern of interlocking triangles.
I know. It sounds complicated. It is an attempt at abstract representation of a vision narrated by a seer given a crash course in theological geometry and apocalyptic imagery. I have an idea how it will be developed, and several possible directions it will take towards completion. Will ir work though, Jim. As we say in Scotland when we're not sure, "We'll see!"
What’s the difference between hope and wishful thinking? When we want things to change for the better we can either sit around waiting for that to happen, or do something that might make our hopes more possible. Hope is active, wishful thinking is passive. Hope tries to face reality and works at changing the way things are, whereas wishful thinking just tries to ignore reality and day-dream.
Christian hope is the opposite of wishful thinking. Here’s why. Wishful thinking is that immature resentment that the world doesn’t work the way we want it to. Wishful thinking is the mentality of those who buy a Euro-lottery ticket and imagine a different life made possible by being the one in a 100 million who wins 100 million.
Unlike wishful thinking, Christian hope doesn’t reject the world as it is, Hopeful Christians see the world as God-created, God-loved and the place where God is actively present. So as Christians we hope in God, the God revealed in Jesus. God is light shining in the darkest corners of the world. God is love challenging the hate and fear that leaves human communities broken, jagged edged and at odds with each other.
But Christian hope doesn’t just happen. Hope is God’s gift, stirred and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, who lifts our eyes beyond the way things are to the God whose purpose is to redeem, reconcile and make things new. We are called to live hopefully. How do we do that? It’s not as if you can give yourself a good talking to and decide to be more hopeful.
No, but you can give God a good talking to and pour out your heart before a faithful God and loving Father. That’s exactly what John Calvin, the great Reformer of Geneva, advised in one of his sermons. It’s good advice.
“We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.”
Calvin was light years away from the power of positive thinking, or those one liners that say happiness is a choice, or that control of positive or negative feelings is up to us. We are human, and low spirits, soul weariness, anxiety about the future or disappointment about the past are quite normal experiences.
Feeling down is not helped by feeling guilty about feeling down! In fact the Psalmist is very reassuring on this.
“The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.” (Psalm 103.14)
And then there is this: “Why are you downcast O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.” (Psalm 42.
What Calvin is saying is that our hopefulness is vitally linked to prayer. We hope in God, and that makes all the difference. We learn to live hopefully not by wishful thinking, but by prayerful thinking to the Lord of all hopefulness. When we bring our anxieties and fears, our low spirits and weariness to God, we do so with assurance. Because whether we feel it or not, God’s compassion supports us, and God’s power surrounds us, and God’s purposes remain faithful and true to his promises.
All my hope on God is founded;
he doth still my trust renew,
me through change and chance he guideth,
only good and only true.
God unknown, he alone
calls my heart to be his own.
I’ve found that John Calvin’s words, with small adjustment, can be made into a prayer – try it, it goes something like this:
“Compassionate Father, and God of all hope,
increase our hope when it is small,
awaken it when it is dormant,
confirm it when it is wavering,
strengthen it when it is weak,
and raise it up when it is overthrown.”
That might not be a bad prayer with which to begin and end the day. Try it for a week – and hope for the best, God’s best, all of which is yours in Christ.
Sometimes loud, heartfelt singing makes all the difference. Wesley told congregational singers using the new Hymn Book for the People Called Methodists to sing "Lustily and with good courage."
Praise isn't about the sound of our own voice which we hear; it is the sound of our voices as God hears.
To sing of faith, confidence, hope, love, trust, and joy, is an exercise in worship where mumbling, hesitation and the constraints of self-consciousness are transformed into a new song. That happens when we begin to sing the reality behind words which break apart our resigned acceptance of our every day.
That happened yesterday in church (Crown Terrace in Aberdeen). After the Benediction, we sang a song based on the brilliant poem of Isaiah 55.12. It helps that it's a personal favourite – here's the Isaianic text.
"You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands."
We sang lustily and with good courage. We sang a new song about the applause of creation for the Creator. It was loud and by the third repetition we were ready to go out with joy and be led forth in peace.
Joy and peace don't just happen. We sing them into being. Hope is not based on fantasy, but grows out of a new way of seeing the world. Imagine, says Isaiah. Imagine the mountains as a flash-mob choir, and the trees as a cheering audience with standing ovation. That's your world.
On a personal note. I've thought long and deeply about joy and peace, because I've had to think long and deeply about grief and loss since our daughter Aileen died three years ago. The puzzle of love and loss co-existing in one heart remains unsolved. But the puzzle of hope and love and peace and joy still being possible in that same heart is an equal mystery.
Those words of Isaiah, sung with hand-clapping gusto, help to remake our vision of the world. The less than light-hearted Calvin described the world as "the theatre of God's glory." In that theatre mountains burst into song, trees clap their hands, and human hearts resonate to the music of God's creation, and join in the applause.
Zwingli. God’s Armed Prophet. (New Haven: Yale, 2021) 349 pages
Those who know Bruce Gordon’s work on the Swiss Reformation and on John Calvin will not be disappointed with this recently published biography of Zwingli. This is the first substantial biography of Zwingli since the 1976 biography by G R Potter. It is written with informed verve, and sufficient detail to allow nuance without losing the narrative flow. Gordon writes with the sympathetic evaluation of a writer who appreciates Zwingli’s great gifts and achievements without trying to minimise the dangers and consequences of politicised theology in Reformation Europe.
One strength of Gordon’s work is the attention he pays to how Zwingli combined in one charismatic central figure, a prophetic reforming theology drawn from the Word of God, with political goals achieved by persuasion, power and ultimately military conflict. In doing this, the book also brings Zwingli into historically plausible relationship with the other major Reformation figures.
There is Erasmus whom Zwingli admired as his mentor, and who inspired him as a humanist priest. Erasmus later broke with Zwingli over his attacks on the Mass, images, the saints and indeed the entire fabric of medieval Catholic piety. There is Luther, who throughout Zwingli’s life and time in Zurich was his nemesis, the two utterly irreconcilable not only in their views on the Lord’s Supper, but on the means of promoting reform, on the interpretation of the Word of God, and on human and divine agency as they relate to predestination and ecclesiology.
Then there is Calvin, who came late in Zwingli’s life but who steadfastly opposed the Zurich prophet’s theological views and reforming methods. Johann Eck appears throughout the narrative as the Catholic inquisitor par excellence, formidable opponent of Luther and Zwingli, and one whose rhetorical and theological precision were weaponised in the struggle between the Reformers and the Papacy. Other significant players in Zwingli’s story include the much more reasonable Oecolampadius from Basel, the mediating Martin Bucer from Strasbourg, and Heinrich Bullinger who became Zwingli’s young successor as prophet preacher in Zurich.
The lives and relationships of all the major German and Swiss Reformers are placed by Gordon in the evolving context of late medieval and early modern Europe. And in the case of Zwingli, in the complicated and volatile political machinations of the Swiss Confederation and its awkward relations with surrounding nations and states. Gordon is the best kind of expert, a reliable guide through the complexities and dynamics of radical social and religious upheavals in the context of political flux.
It is clear from the narrative of Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation that there were multiple surges and streams of reform playing out across Europe. As well as the agendas of the reformers there were powerful political currents and collisions of interest involving the Holy Roman Empire, Germany, France, the Swiss Confederation and the Papacy. Emerging from Gordon’s lucid and convincing portrayal of these social forces, religious upheavals and political power plays, is a portrait of Zwingli as both major instigator of reform, and as a human being caught up in events and circumstances too powerful for any individual to control. The story reads like a Shakespearean tragedy, and with moments of high drama and almost comical intransigence.
Each of Zwingli’s major writings are examined, especially as Zwingli’s theology relates to Catholic and Lutheran doctrine. On the Lord’s Supper, Gordon gives careful attention both to what Zwingli both taught and wrote, and to the caricatures and distortions of his opponents, and his later (mistaken) supporters. What emerges is a much more robust view of ‘what happens’ in the gathering of the covenant community of Christian believers when bread is broken and wine is poured and all partake spiritually of the presence of the Lord. Zwingli’s irreconcilable difference with Luther is thoroughly explored in a chapter entitled ‘Broken Body’.
Other perspectives enhance and further clarify the inner springs and external influences that Zwingli by turns drove, or was driven by. These include Zwingli’s humanist education, his wide-ranging promotional epistolary network, regular prophetic preaching in the Grossmünster and sermon dissemination as both propaganda and edification. In addition Gordon explores Zwingli’s often overlooked work as skilled musician and liturgist, his relentless emphasis on social justice and care for the poor, his role as scourge of the Anabaptists and as virtual Chaplain to the Large and Small City Councils, and the spiritual paradox of one who moved from pacifism to sword carrying priest in defence of the Reformed faith.
The two final chapters are essential reading to understand the legacy and reputation of Zwingli. Gordon reviews the many biased and distorted versions of Zwingli’s motives, actions and the manner of his death. The conflicted factions within the movements for Reformation had their own reasons to vilify or praise the Zurich priest-soldier. Apologetics and polemics created a web of distorted narratives intended to fit the larger narrative of the interest groups; many were examples of unabashed verbal air brushing. Where possible Gordon separates myth from fact, and like a good archaeologist brushes away the layers of dust and accretions to expose something of the original.
Two further commendations of this book. 1. The 2019 film Zwingli is reviewed and placed at the end point of what is effectively a reception history of Zwingli biography. It’s not often a scholarly biography makes room for a film review; this one is enthusiastic though critical of occasional historical licence. Gordon is a shrewd reviewer, and sees clearly the film director’s intention to portray Zwingli in terms that resonate 21st Century sensibilities. 2. The Index is immensely valuable. It is carefully constructed, it avoids the software catch-all that produces a sand storm of more or less relevant page references. The several times I used it I found exactly what I needed in jig time!
Why read this book. Let Bruce Gordon put the case:
“With their emphasis on the power of one person to conceive, initiate and prosecute, biographies are complicit in the attempt to make reformers part of our story. The early Reformation continues to be the lives of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin as recent anniversaries have underscored…the perspective remains firmly that of the dominant reformer.” (300)
One way or another, our contemporary Western world has to reckon with a religious history that is deeply problematic for modern sensitivities. A first step to understanding the nature of those problems is the search for truth and perspective that is the work of the best biographers.
Jim Gordon
IN the Introduction to Galatians, Wright takes some time to examine Luther’s world, Paul’s world, and our attempts to do justice to modern biblical scholarship by trying to understand how Paul’s part in the furore in Galatia forged arguments and concepts that still have currency in Christian theology and formation today. In these 40 pages or so Wright reiterates his views on justification, sanctification, works of the law, and the unity of the church across all ethnic, religious and gender barriers. Galatians, he insists, is vitally concerned with the coming together of Jewish and Gentile believers in the single Messiah family.
The situation in Galatia presupposes anxiety amongst some Jewish Christians that admission of Gentile converts on the basis of faith alone would send a signal of civil disobedience to Roman authorities, and call in question the provisions of the Abrahamic covenant for Israel. In addition, for Gentile believers to turn from idols was an act of social dissent, a self-exclusion from much of society, and a dangerous precedent. “What happens if people start to make the claim that Jesus is Lord but Caesar is not?” (31)
Paul’s answer is to root all believers, Jews and Gentiles, within God’s covenant and new creation. Much of the argumentation in Galatians is less about who is in or out and on what basis, and more about the new covenant through faith in Messiah Jesus. “Christian formation in Galatians is rooted in the declaration of new creation, bursting in upon the old world with rescuing power.” (34).
With this new creation and covenant come new demands and a new enabling to fulfil them. Through Christ's atoning death, the power of His resurrection and the coming of the indwelling Spirit, believers are caught up into the story of God’s new, transformed and changed creation. Crucifixion atonement, resurrection life, and Spirit-inspired living, constitute the true Gospel, than which there is no other for Christian believers. That is the argument at the heart of Galatians.
The Spirit is both transformative energy and advance gift. Through the Spirit, Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free are brought into the one family of God, the God of Abraham, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Messiah. As one example of how this works in the letter itself, Wright argues forcefully that for Paul, shared meals at the same table are absolutely non-negotiable for Christian believers. Hence the confrontation with Peter, and Paul’s intransigence on this issue. Separation at the table (as Peter exemplified) on the basis of Jew / Gentile identity markers, is fatal to Paul’s vision of the community of those who are “crucified with Christ, yet who live because Christ lives in them, the Christ who loved them and gave himself for them.”
How Wright’s take on the Galatian situation and Paul’s response to it in this letter all works out, is demonstrated in the remaining 350 pages of verse by verse commentary. This is divided into 9 sections, each of which has a substantial conclusion drawing out the implications of the passage for Christian formation.
Galatians 2.11-21 is covered in fifty pages. Like the other sections Wright provides his own translation, a brief introduction that puts the text block in its literary and rhetorical context. The text breaks naturally into two sub sections, one on Peter and the Antioch incident, the other Paul’s theological argument for his own position. Wright is a good storyteller and his explanation of what exactly was going on between Peter and Paul is a fine piece of narrative exegesis in which Paul tells the Galatians what happened and why it matters. Along the way we learn the two apostles had a history, and that Paul had no option but to have a public showdown. In 2.14 Wright translates, “But when I saw that they weren’t walking down the line of gospel truth, I said to Cephas in front of them all…” That’s fighting talk, and Wright is an excellent guide to what the fight was about.
The argument of Paul is detailed, subtle and aims to establish once and for all the nature of the Gospel, the grounds of salvation as funded and founded in Christ, and as the basis of the new community of believers. Galatians 2.20 Wright sees as pivotal in the letter, indeed the heart of Paul’s theology and experience. Because of the faithfulness of Christ, fulfilled in crucifixion and vindicated in resurrection, believers in Messiah Jesus are part of a new life, and a new creation. They become a Spirit enlivened and driven community, risen in Christ and in which Christ lives, so that by their faith in the faithful Messiah, they embody and demonstrate the Gospel of the crucified and risen Messiah Jesus.
I found Wright’s interpretation of this passage persuasive, non-polemical, exegetically thorough and theologically rich in suggestion. As a passage of commentary focusing on Christian formation, the conclusions on pages 160-168 are not of the “hints for how the text applies and can be used in preaching” type! Five core principles of spiritual theology emerge: The people of God are defined by their relation to Jesus Christ; faith and righteousness (pistis and dikaiosyne) describe exactly the basis of Christian community; Paul is not arguing the end of Jewish faith, but its fulfilment in Jesus Messiah; Galatians is an ecumenical document arguing passionately for the unity of all Jesus believers; to be crucified and risen in Christ is to live a new life, subversive of cultural norms and characterised by the practices of Jesus and the fruits of the Spirit. Each of these points is substantially argued.
Perhaps a final quotation will give a flavour of commentary for Christian formation:
““The life I do still live in the flesh, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Whenever genuine Jesus-shaped preaching and pastoral work take place, the faithful self-giving of Jesus will be both the driving and guiding force. And the love outpoured on the cross, generating an answering love, remains at the heart of the formation both of Jesus-followers as individuals and, yet more demandingly of the common life that seeks to invoke and follow the Son of God.” (167)
Galatians is well served by good commentaries. These include De Silva (most recent, and alert to Paul’s rhetorical and theological strategies) Dunn (new perspective), Keener (rich in background), Longenecker (showing its age but solid traditional), Martyn, De Boer (both apocalyptic perspective), Matera (new perspective and Catholic), Moo (traditional Reformed), and Oakes (historical and social background).
This volume by Wright does seem to bring something beyond the historical and exegetical excellence in many of these commentaries. Wright is just as committed to excellence in those same disciplines, but in this commentary with additional reflection on how the text is to be embodied, lived and practiced in the life “now lived by the faithfulness of the Son of God.” The nearest equivalent in my view is Richard Hays’ luminous commentary, unfortunately hidden away in vol. XI of The New Interpreter’s Bible (2000). There too there’s an emphasis on historical exegesis, but with a separate section of application. Wright now supplements, but certainly doesn’t replace Hays as a commentary on Galatians for personal and community formation.
Is such a new series justified? Yes, if subsequent volumes maintain the quality of Wright’s initiating work on Galatians, and yes, if they are as spiritually and pastorally knowing. Does Wright fulfil his remit? Yes, though in his own way, and within the now well-known, and for some controversial, theological and exegetical matrix within which he does his work to the blessing of the wider church. This is a readable, stimulating and authoritative commentary. Tolle lege.